Modems

[pduggan]

Just really wanted to pick up on a couple of things Ross has said about modems, and point out that high speed connections without dial-ups are still prohibitively expensive for the average home user in the UK. And Oftel (telephone watchdog body) are not having much luck at the moment in forcing BT to make realistically priced freephone access available to most ISPs either. So please think carefully about whether you really need to post that JPEG or whatever at 250K - I fully accept that this is a graphics/art site and it may sometimes be necessary to do justice to an image, but a little loss in quality can go a long way to reducing file size!



Peter</p>



Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>

[pduggan]

Just really wanted to pick up on a couple of things Ross has said about modems, and point out that high speed connections without dial-ups are still prohibitively expensive for the average home user in the UK. And Oftel (telephone watchdog body) are not having much luck at the moment in forcing BT to make realistically priced freephone access available to most ISPs either. So please think carefully about whether you really need to post that JPEG or whatever at 250K - I fully accept that this is a graphics/art site and it may sometimes be necessary to do justice to an image, but a little loss in quality can go a long way to reducing file size!



Peter</p>



Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>

[Soquili]

Hi Peter,

I live in a rural area, and phone service causes slow modem connections. If it is raining, I get connected at 14.4K on clear days maybe 26.4K.

I believe that is the point Ross was making by starting a new thread for the Jellies buttons. Those of us that have slow connections, were having a long wait to see those GREAT images.

Regards,

Soquili [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[pduggan]

Hi Soquili

Don't get me wrong - I'm agreeing with Ross, and simply wanted to reinforce his point with a plea for careful consideration of the quality/bandwidth conundrum when posting anything! Low cost, high speed, connections (as recommended by Ross in an earlier thread) seem to be much more common on your side of the pond, but still sadly expensive over here. Though at least I seem to be getting the most out of my 56K modem in this sparsely populated part of the world, so I'm sorry for you... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img]

Peter</p>

Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>

[This message was edited by Peter Duggan on March 29, 2001 at 07:06 AM.]

[Erik Heyninck]

Perhaps it might be possible to work with some kind of overgrown thumbnail posted here, and post the "biggie" in the Gallery. I'd gladly do just that, but don't know how to do it, and I don't want to interfere with the precious coding of the forum. Just an idea... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]

[pduggan]

Smart idea, Erik, and there is a way!

I'd been thinking of adopting a similar policy by posting any biggies to my own webspace and linking from thumbnails, but...

For those who don't have their own webspace (or don't want to fill it with stuff for these forums), here's a suggestion:

Post the biggie to a new thread here or the gallery, with a size warning in the thread title (eg JPEG 257K). Copy the URL from that thread and include it as an HTML or UBB link (with size warning again) in a separate message/thread, to which you can attach a more modest thumbnail. That way, no-one has to sit waiting for the full-sized image just to find out what they might be missing, but everyone has the option to see it if they want.

As for what constitutes a biggie, I guess that has to be a matter for personal judgement and the existing size of any thread to which you're adding. It might also be a good idea to revisit the thread with the biggie to link back to the thread with the thumbnail and request that replies be posted there...

Food for thought, confused or what? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]

Peter</p>

Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>

[pduggan]

Try this link for a huge (162K) version of the attached image!

And BTW, how about a separate forum for parking stuff like my big JPEG so it doesn't get in the way of normal posts?

Peter</p>

Peat Stack or Pete's Tack?</p>

PS And you also get to find out how many folk really wanted to see your bloated image!

PPS Of course, if you could guarantee that nobody had seen the biggie first, you shouldn't need to post a link back to the main thread - so long as you'd linked to the biggie with the USB URL or target="_blank" HTML, all they'd have to do would be to close the new window before replying...

[This message was edited by Peter Duggan on March 29, 2001 at 11:03 AM.]

[This message was edited by Peter Duggan on March 29, 2001 at 11:36 AM.]

[Soquili]

Hi Peter,

I was agreeing with you agreeing with Ross [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

DSL service is making its way into my part of the world, but only for those that live in town. I'm too far from the nearest telephone exchange for it to work.

The bright side is I have time to get another cup of coffee while a page is loading. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

Soquili [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[jassony]

I'm in the same situation as Soquili. I too live in a rural area. Hey but maybe I'm lucky, just read in the newspaper about a small town here that just now got phone lines put in.

[Big Frank]

Hi chaps,

I'm going to be the fly in the oitment (or should that be the fly in the 'Gel' [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] ). I appreciate the problems people with slower connections may have waiting for large graphics files to download but, guys and gals, this is a graphics forum.

Yes, large images should probably be uploaded to the Gallery, but not everybody will necessarily be checking the Gallery on a regular basis. There are many options open to people adding graphics to their posts, but for me by far the easiest is to use the 'attach' option. I don't particularly want the hassle of uploading an image to my webspace and then typing the url in the message...

Most people here know how to downsize an image to reasonable proportions but, as it's a graphic forum, most people also realise that the true beauty and clarity of some images can be lost with jpeg or gif compression (some of which is still lost with the forum's 300k upload limit). The bottom line is, you have an option to switch images off in your browser if all you want to do is read the posts, but around here that is going to impair your experience of the forum. You can always click 'show picture' on any new images you wish to view or, as Soqui suggests, go make a cuppa if it's a biggie!

Guys, it's a graphics forum and you can see from the threads that have appeared over the past weeks that people love showing off their work. The rest of us love looking at everybody's stuff. That's just the way I like it, which is why the forum's always open in one browser or another on my system.

Just my penniworth... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img]

--
Big Frank was
http://www.wognum.org/files/madewithxarax.gif